Two Envelopes And A Phone > Recent Status Updates

So, my enthusiasm for re-reading a whole mess of Doctor Who books is quieting down a bit. It turns out a few of these books, revisited before the end of the year, might be enough to make feel I’ve really celebrated the 60th anniversary of the phenom, the bookworm way. I absolutely loved Time and Relative all over again, and it may just be these tigers, and maybe Christmas on a Rational Planet, uh, near Christmas.

Kinda reminds me of Carnage on the Committee mixed with The Affair of the Blood-Stained Egg Cosy…but those are both huge favourites of mine, and I’m not sure this is flying at that level. Jury out.

'Even in the Box, it's cold. And that shouldn't be possible' - Diary of Susan Foreman, March, 1963...

So, started this, just a bit, after watching the first two episodes of my fave Doctor Who TV story - Delta and the Bannermen. It doesn’t seem that long ago that it was Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary, and now it’s the 60th!

This will be a re-read, to celebrate the Doctor’s 60 years of existence, and success. I will probably dig out a few others to re-read, starting with the intelligent tigers. Meanwhile, Telos got to do a line of Doctor Who novels, until the BBC didn’t sustain the arrangement. I used to own them all except one - now, this is the only Telos Doctor Who book I own. It takes place just before the very first episode…

This book contains two stories that were co-authored by Fredric Brown and Mack Reynolds: 'The Hatchetman' - which I am about to read, and 'Happy Ending'. They were friends, and lived near each other for a while. We'll see what they came up with together. Meanwhile, I have one more book from the Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps series left to read before year's end: Three Corpse Parlay, and one of his novels.

Fredric and Elizabeth Brown kickin' it with Robert A. Heinlein, during a visit to Colorado Springs, and then hangin' with Dorothy B. Hughes, back home in Taos. Good royalty cheques coming in for The Screaming Mimi, life good for the Browns, circa 1950. I'm enjoying my re-read of Elizabeth Brown's memoirs about life with Fred (published in full form, years later). Short stories, and poetry(!), coming up.

Okay, so I've taken the plastic off - the first section of the book is very long, and is actually something I have read before; Fredric Brown's wife, Elizabeth, wrote memoirs about life with Fred, and it eventually got put into shape and published. Before that, a portion of it got included here. I'll re-read it, but it eats up 102 pages of the book, with several stories left over after that.

Dense, challenging reading - I'm not enjoying it as much as Star Maker, but I think I was up for this kind of approach to SF more when I was younger. Some modern writers can achieve this scope and yet still tell an actual story and get the emotions involved. Anyway, I'm glad I'm dipping into it now and then, because it is laborious reading, but impressive.

Interesting…this book has a lower mean rating than most of the other books in the Fredric Brown in the Detective Pulps series. Admittedly, all these books feature a small sample size of reader reaction - but most of them sit at around 4 stars, average. I’m guessing that maybe one of the stories here has not aged well, or collectively we just happen to have some lesser short stories (including some Bio material).

Well, I got to page 136 out of 297...and Inspector French did a succinct summation of what he thinks might have happened, regarding (a) a fire, and (b) a disappearance. It's as if the whole case has been solved; in fact, French came to the conclusions I had already got to (I'm not smarter than the Great Detective, but the first part of the book dropped me into the lead up to tragedy). So...is it all so transparent..?

I think I have something massive figured out…or, I’ve joined the Bamboozled line.

I hope we're still gonna get the Inspector French TV show that's being teased. Anyway - gosh, have I read a ton by this author over the last several years, as it all came back from Limbo. Not too long ago, I hit a really great patch of his Mysteries, and then more recently things have settled down to a mix of some terrific and some average reads. This one fits my current "Arts & Entertainment" focus - paintings.

I've always wanted a copy of the book Widdershins by Oliver Onions - the last time I looked, editions were rare and out of my price range. I'll look into the situation again, maybe soon - but there's a story from that book in here, and up next: 'Benlian'. So at least I'll finally get to read something by this elusive author.

Just finished ‘Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter’ (original version) by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Everything by this author that I’ve read has made him a favourite of mine: this story, Uncle Silas, and everything in Through a Glass Darkly, especially ‘Carmilla’. It was also fun to have this story come up in my reading cycle when I’m about to start a novel about paintings, Golden Ashes. Theme, ahoy!

I think maybe I’ll tackle this next, before I do another clump of stories in The Night Wire. Also, I’m thinking of doing a bunch of novels fitting the theme of The Arts/Forms of Entertainment. I just read Laughing Gas, this Lange Lewis book fits…as would: Dancers in Mourning, The Switch House, Death of a Bookseller, White Tears, and Golden Ashes. TV, music, dance, movies, theatre, photography, you name it!

I’m four tales in, and three out of four have been great, one was okay. Overall, I think this will be a terrific assortment. The stories, so far, have made me think of various other things: John Carpenter’s They Live, Maurice Renard’s stuff, Muriel Jaeger’s The Man With Six Senses. I’m thrilled one was set at Christmas, and also thrilled one had to do with music…always up for music-themed Crime or Horror stories.

A pretty entertaining tale, was 'An Upright Woman' by H. R. F. Keating. Sort of reminded me of the old Hammer suspense film, Cash On Demand, starring Peter Cushing - but then it went its own way. Mrs. Prothero's ability to actually talk creeps into having second thoughts kind of reminded me of the Seventh Doctor's verbal skills against gunsels, in The Happiness Patrol.

I am super-excited to be getting to this unique short-story book.The Intro has let me know that I will be dealing with weird “telegraphs and telephones, phonographs and radios, cinema and typewriting and television, as well as more obscure technologies.” (pg. 10). Apparently, our subgenre is “media horror!”. Well, smartphones have been called “the devil’s tool”. I’ll never own one.